Greatest Capers
"'Lupin III's Greatest Capers'" is a compilation tape of two English-dubbed Red Jacket episodes, that was released by Streamline Pictures, circa 1995. Both episodes had been previously released as separate volumes in Streamline's "Anime Classics" library. These two episodes became very popular in Japan, due to the director being none other than Hayao Miyazaki, who had been using the pen-name: Teruki Tsutomu, at the time. Banking on the early success of the now renown filmmaker, the art design is distinctive of Miyazaki's style and the animation is of the finest quality to be found in the entire Red Jacket Series. These episodes were among the first Lupin animated projects to be released to western audiences, along with Mystery of Mamo, Castle of Cagliostro, The Legend of the Gold of Babylon, and Plot of The Fuma Clan, the latter two were subtitled at the time. The episodes included were: *''Albatross: Wings of Death'' (episode 145) [original title: Shi no tsubasa Arubatorosu, literal translation: Albatross, the wings of Death. Also called Wings of Death - Albatross ] *''Aloha, Lupin'' (episode 155) [original title: Saraba itoshiki Rupan yo, literal translation: Farewell My Beloved Lupin ''] Dub and alterations The dub is notable for being one of the first ever English-language Lupin dubs and contains the talents of several well-known voice actors. It was the first in the US to use his correct name since the English dub of The Mystery of Mamo was not officially released at the time outside of bootleg tapes coming from a tape copy from TMS. Lupin's name is pronounced as /ˈluː.p'ɪ'n/ like the Funimation dubs, as opposed to the customary pronunciation of /ˈluː.p'ə'n/ used in later dubs. In addition, Lupin is also constantly referred to by the alias of ''Wolf, due to copyright reasons and linking to the dub of The Castle of Cagliostro. Like the Streamline dub of The Castle of Cagliostro, the script was rewritten with a majority of the dialogue completely replaced with some additions and removals however keeping the intentions of the original script. While the episodes themselves were left relatively unchanged from the original source, several modifications were made to the opening and ending sequences. TMS gave Streamline the masters that had the textless opening. These masters had the title Cliff Hanger, an aborted attempt to bring Lupin to markets where they couldn't legally use his name however by the time Streamline released the dubs, the copyright to the Arsene Lupin name in the US had expired. A new title card which reads "Lupin III: Tales of the Wolf" is superimposed over the old title card outside of one frame. https://twitter.com/ashuraou/status/1180831005348892672 A screenshot from A Wedding Dress Doesn't Suit Fujiko is inexplicably placed over the sequence where a cutout of the word LUPIN zooms forward to reveal a profile shot of the gang cruising in Lupin's Benz, this was due to the above reason. During the final shot of the opening, credit is given to Monkey Punch in English lettering, naming him as the creator of the original comics. The original ending credits sequence of the episodes, which pertained to season four, were replaced with the ending sequence of season 3. The music, which was originally Love Squall by Sandy Ohn, was replaced with an instrumental rendition and the sequence itself was slightly altered to fit the timing of the new audio track. Reception Despite that anime was a niche in the US back in the mid-1990s when the tapes were released, there were reviewers who praised the two Hayao Miyazaki episodes. Most reviewers mention his name with Martin Ouellette from Protoculture Addicts calling him "the master of animation". Michael Swanigan from Toon Magazine calls Albatross, "This high-flying farce is a true anime classic" and Aloha Lupin, "The result is arguably the finest ani-mation ever produced for series television". Not every review was positive as Todd French from Imagi-Movies mentioning that the "animation is dated by today’s standards" however considers "the situations are well-crafted". The Streamline dub was also praised with Martin Ouellette saying "The dubbing by Streamline is flawless (just as with ‘Cagliostro Castle’) and shows this company’s concern about good dubbing" for Albatross and "The dub is done very well..." for Aloha Lupin. Tim Lucas from Video Watchdog mentions "the English dubbing is exceptionally well-done, managing to be both witty and topical, and features some unexpected stereo effects that add to the fun". Rick Sternbach from Animerica was less positive saying "The video and sound quality are fine, and the dubbing is at least on a par with the Cagliostro feature in that it might have required a modicum of exaggeration." Trivia *Jigen states that two things he hates are garlic and radiation burns. *Streamline Pictures wanted to dub a 3rd episode however they were denied by TMS who wanted the entire series to be dubbed and Streamline could not afford to dub all 155 https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/streamline-pictures-part-9/. It is unknown which episode that they would have chosen and no way of knowing since both Carl Macek and Fred Patten have passed away. Category:Red Jacket episodes